Yesaya 19:3

19:3 The Egyptians will panic, ¹ 

and I will confuse their strategy. ² 

They will seek guidance from the idols and from the spirits of the dead,

from the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, and from the magicians. ³ 

Yesaya 19:13

19:13 The officials of Zoan are fools,

the officials of Memphis ⁴  are misled;

the rulers ⁵  of her tribes lead Egypt astray.

Yesaya 29:14

29:14 Therefore I will again do an amazing thing for these people –

an absolutely extraordinary deed. ⁶ 

Wise men will have nothing to say,

the sages will have no explanations.” ⁷ 

Yesaya 44:25

44:25 who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers ⁸ 

and humiliates ⁹  the omen readers,

who overturns the counsel of the wise men ¹⁰ 

and makes their advice ¹¹  seem foolish,

[19:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and the spirit of Egypt will be laid waste in its midst.”

[19:3]  ² tn The verb בָּלַע (bala’, “confuse”) is a homonym of the more common בָּלַע (bala’, “swallow”); see HALOT 135 s.v. I בלע.

[19:3]  ³ tn Heb “they will inquire of the idols and of the spirits of the dead and of the ritual pits and of the magicians.” Hebrew אוֹב (’ov, “ritual pit”) refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. See the note on “incantations” in 8:19.

[19:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “Noph” (so KJV); most recent English versions substitute the more familiar “Memphis.”

[19:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “the cornerstone.” The singular form should be emended to a plural.

[29:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “Therefore I will again do something amazing with these people, an amazing deed, an amazing thing.” This probably refers to the amazing transformation predicted in vv. 17-24, which will follow the purifying judgment implied in vv. 15-16.

[29:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “the wisdom of their wise ones will perish, the discernment of their discerning ones will keep hidden.”

[44:25]  ⁸ tc The Hebrew text has בַּדִּים (baddim), perhaps meaning “empty talkers” (BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד). In the four other occurrences of this word (Job 11:3; Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30; 50:36) the context does not make the meaning of the term very clear. Its primary point appears to be that the words spoken are meaningless or false. In light of its parallelism with “omen readers,” some have proposed an emendation to בָּרִים (barim, “seers”). The Mesopotamian baru-priests were divination specialists who played an important role in court life. See R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 93-98. Rather than supporting an emendation, J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:189, n. 79) suggests that Isaiah used בַּדִּים purposively as a derisive wordplay on the Akkadian word baru (in light of the close similarity of the d and r consonants).

[44:25]  ⁹ tn Or “makes fools of” (NIV, NRSV); NAB and NASB both similar.

[44:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “who turns back the wise” (so NRSV); NIV “overthrows the learning of the wise”; TEV “The words of the wise I refute.”

[44:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “their knowledge” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).